


Maze of Lillies, Maze of Dreams

by taymitsu



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Adult!AU, F/F, I got second-hand embarrassment by writing Yoshiko, Maru is gay, mari is the best wingman, meaning theyre just living alone, really fluffy and cute, yoshiko is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8895310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taymitsu/pseuds/taymitsu
Summary: Hanamaru has finally managed to reach her dream: live by herself as an independent adult. Everything is perfect, save for one little (extreme) problem...





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first (and definitely not last) contribution to the YohaMaru tag!! I came across an idea similar to this on Tumblr and immediately thought of these two dorks...

Hanamaru had been living alone for only two weeks before she decided that she did not like it. _At all._

She's never had any problems with her old home. Maru loved living at the beautiful temple with her grandfather, yet she eventually grew out of it. Her grandfather was supportive when she talked to him about it, and understanding that she was no longer a little girl anymore. He even helped her find the place and pay rent.

Now, all she wanted was to go back home.

The first couple days were fine, exciting, really. Maru was an adult, finally taking care of herself! In the real world! In the spur of the moment, she thought she could do anything. It was one of the best feelings she had ever known.

Then...weird things started happening. When she walked past her neighbors door, she heard abnormally deep, ominous chanting in some foreign language on the other side. Then, one night, Maru couldn't sleep, for the punk-rock music echoing through the thin walls was twenty notches too loud. When she walked out on the balcony she shared with her neighbor one night, on the concrete flooring in multicolored chalk, were about five little pentagram drawings and variations of phrases like "the great Yohane descends!"

If Maru were honest, she wouldn't have any problems if it weren't for her mysterious neighbor. She had never seen them which only added to her suspicions. They kept their blinds closed and never answered the door. After a while of the creepy drawings and satanic rituals, Maru stopped going onto her back porch and had extreme caution when walking past their door.

Thin walls were the main problem. Almost nightly Maru would lay awake, staring at her ceiling as intense alternative music poured from every crevice of her left wall.

"Just tell your landlord," Ruby had suggested when she came over one day. "It's a nice apartment, I wouldn't want you to move because someone can't keep their volume down."

Gratefully, Maru smiled. Ruby was sweet and understanding. However, Maru didn't like complaining. Especially when she hadn't even asked her neighbor to stop in the first place. It would be unfair to them if she told the landlord without telling her neighbor, no matter how much she didn't like them.

However, she was too scared to approach them! She figured they were a weird goth man with his parents paying his rent for him until he could get out of his phase and come home. First of all, those types of people scared the temple girl. Second of all...well...Maru couldn't think of a second reason. She just didn't like creepy men.

Plus, Maru couldn't just leave. Of course, that would be her only other option besides just sucking it up and dealing with the music. But...she just couldn't leave! That wasn't an option.

Maru blushed just thinking about it.

In the first week Maru had lived her, she was walking out the lobby just as a beautiful, raven-haired girl was walking into it. Maru had bumped into her arm, and the paper bag she was holding fell, and her groceries rolled out of it.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, zura!" Maru shrieked, bending down so she could help the girl. She grabbed an apple and placed it in the paper bag before realizing it was torn.

The raven-haired looked at her with big, pink eyes, and Maru felt herself blush. "No, you're fine! It's my fault! Really!" The girl exclaimed, and suddenly, her face was the color of the red apple Maru was holding and through her bangs, she saw sweat glossing the girls forehead. Quickly, she looked down, snatching the apple out of Maru's hand.

Giggling, Maru slowly stood up. "Okay, zura. But at least let me get you a new bag," she said before turning around and running to the the lobby desk, drumming her fingers on the countertop.

The girl who came out of the back room was young, she couldn't have been over three years older than Maru. The badge pinned against her breast read ' _Mari_.' "Yes?" The blonde asked in English.

Maru glanced back at the pretty girl on the ground and then the girl in front of her. She opened up her mouth to say something before the blonde—Mari—interrupted. "Oh, Yoshiko-chan's gotten into trouble again?" She asked with a sigh, smiling a bit. As the pretty girl, Yoshiko, let out a loud and frustrated " _Mari-san!_ "

With a giggle, Mari disappeared into the back and reemerged with a plastic bag. "Don't worry about her," she said as she passed Maru. "She always gets that way around pretty girls." Maru's face burned bright as Mari passed her.

Now Hanamaru couldn't leave the apartment. She'd been thinking of Yoshiko-chan every second since that incident, she wouldn't keep her mind alone. And if what Mari, she clerk Maru had become acquainted with since that incident, was correct, there was a possibility that maybe Yoshiko could feel the same way about her?

Maru rolled over in her bed. Tonight was one of the very few nights the loud music was turned off. The silence kind of unnerved her, so she had her music on, quiet and soft. She assumed her neighbor wasn't home, but if they were, they wouldn't be able to hear her music. Because Maru is a nice person.

Still, she was tempted to turn it up. Loud.

Getting up and out of bed, Maru walked into her kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. As soon as she was out of the range to hear her music, the silence, once again, filled the air. Only the padding of Maru's feet on the tile and the rummaging of her hands in the tea-bag jar could be heard.

When the kettle was on, its quiet hum was the only sound in the apartment. Leaning against the counter, Maru's eyes flickered about nervously. In the quiet, it was a bit creepy. It was late at night and only the kitchen lights were on.

A sudden voice came from her left and Maru jumped, extremely startled having already been on edge. She let out a quiet gasp as the voice, but as she listened, she slowly relaxed...

Someone was singing.

Maru stood up straight, listening to the voice. It was beautiful and strong, not high but not too low, and happened to be singing one of Ruby's favorite songs, _Garasu no Hanazono,_  by two members of that one idol group she was obsessed with. There was no music to it, and the voice was surprisingly female...and coming from the apartment next to hers.

Surprised, Hanamaru bolted to the wall, practically throwing herself against it. Sure enough, the beautiful voice was singing acapella, and when it rang with the opening of the song, it's familiarity struck her. However, she couldn't place exactly where she had heard that voice before.

Maru didn't know what came over her, or how she knew the words to the song—or mainly where her bravery came from, but as soon as her neighbor sang " _yume no meiro_ ," Hanamaru responded with the next lyrics, " _yuri no meiro..._ "

Maru was expecting the next part of the intro, but it never came. Once again, it was silent, and Maru wilted.

_A maze of lilies...a maze of dreams..._

Although she wasn't very confident in herself, Hanamaru knew she was a good singer. Enough people have told her and she's spent enough years in choir to know this. Still, when Maru decided to sing the next length alone, her voice shook, and she was prepared for her neighbor to knock on the wall and yell at her to shut up.

Yet, surprisingly, the voice started again, and Harmonized with Maru's perfectly. Although slightly blurred from the wall that separated them, she could still hear almost perfectly. They sang together through the wall, and Maru felt where the girl's fingers touched hers.

Slowly, the voice grew quieter and distant, and the sound of footsteps could be heard on Maru's side of the wall. Then she realized—her neighbor was moving. To the balcony.

Maru stopped singing right when the first verse started so she could run to catch up with her. She practically tore through her bedroom, the door flying open, and jumped onto her bed and then flew right off of it, before opening her balcony door with such a force the glass could have broken.

The exact same time she stepped onto the balcony was the exact same time Yoshiko did.

Gaping, Maru looked at her neighbor with wide eyes. How could the kind and beautiful girl she bumped into downstairs be her freaky neighbor?! " _Y-Yoshiko-chan?!_ " She exclaimed incredulously.

Yoshiko looked down, watching her toes as she moved her feet around in little circles on the concrete. "Um," she started quietly, "It's Yohane."

After the disbelief washed over her face, suddenly, Maru felt herself grinning, and she took a step forward, popping up right under Yoshiko's nose. "Yoshiko-chan!" She squealed happily, giddy from being reunited with the girl she had been thinking about for a week now. "It really is you, zura!"

The golden glow reflecting off the busiest part of Namazu shone like sea lights onto Yoshiko's hair and skin, just barely illuminating the sudden blush overtaking Yoshiko's skin.

"Z-Zuramaru," she whispered, playing with a strand of her own hair, looking out from the balcony onto the town.

Clutching her hands to her chest, Maru asked curiously, "how did you know my name, zura?" Causing Yoshiko to tense and turn a deeper shade of red.

Yoshiko leaned against the rail, back towards the apartment and looking down at the busy street below her and answered quietly, "Mari-san told me."

It was Hanamaru's turn to blush, so she looked out into the distance too, where she could barely see the stars reflecting on the ocean. Did that mean...Yoshiko had asked Mari about her? So was Mari telling the truth when she told Maru how clammy Yoshiko got around...girls she thought were pretty?

Feeling her face burning, Hanamaru stole a glance at Yoshiko out of the corner of her eye. Although she did look a bit flustered with her bright pink ears and mouth clamped shut, she also looked beautiful. Her long hair blew in the wind and the orange glow from the town on her face complimented her. Maru quickly looked away.

"I didn't know you lived next door," Maru said quietly, smiling softly to herself. To think Yoshiko had brought her that much trouble, and that Maru had been scared of her. "I'm actually quite glad it's you," she said gratefully, and the tall girl turned to face Maru.

Yoshiko shrugged with a tiny smile, pulling her pajamas closer to her body against the wind. "Uh," she started, "I kinda knew it was you..."

Standing up straighter, Maru let out a loud and uncharacteristic "huh?" that made Yoshiko cringe as she buried her face into her hands in embarrassment. "Really?" Maru asked, turning back towards her neighbor. "Why didn't you say something?"

Yoshiko-chan began to bounce on her toes, looking anywhere but Maru's face—up at the sky, the apartment, and the city. " _Yohane_ ," she started with a deep and shaky voice, " _does not not know how to talk to angels_."

With a blank look, Hanamaru stared at Yoshiko. She was still looking to her upper left and bouncing a bit. Then, in the tense silence, she began to hum.

That's when Hanamaru began to burst into laughter. Although she didn't get it, she thought it was cute—and she's never been hit on before, much less called an angel. Plus, it was ironic how they were both scared of talking to each other yet they had both been lead right to the balcony they shared, staring in front of each other as they confessed.

Suddenly, things felt very weird in the space between Yoshiko and Hanamaru...but Maru found she liked it. The butterflies racing about her stomach and fluttering with her quickly-beating heart seemed to comfort her.

"You have a beautiful voice," Maru pointed out shyly, watching the raven-haired as she took a sharp breath in.

Exhaling, Yoshiko responded warmly, "so do you." Then she smiled, tilting her head to the side, letting her hair fall off her shoulder in smooth waves.

Suddenly the wind blew, and Yoshiko shivered in the cold, for she was only wearing a tank top and shorts as pajamas. When Mari realized this, she began to heat up against her own will, and silently cursed herself for it.

"I'm sorry for keeping you out so long!" Maru piped, chewing on her bottom lip.

"No, no, you're fine!" Yoshiko exclaimed, and Maru remembered their first meeting—Maru sending Yoshiko's groceries rolling across the lobby's tile floors.

Still, Maru turned, resting a hand on the handle of her glass door. Her tea was most likely cold now, yet she couldn't stop smiling. "Do you think we could talk again?" She asked shyly.

A bit too quickly, Yoshiko exclaimed with utmost passion, "yes!" That made Maru giggle, and it took all her will not to wrap her arms around her adorable neighbor.

"Goodnight, Yoshiko-chan," she mumbled as she opened the door, the warmth of her apartment greeting her.

"Goodnight, Zuramaru," came the response from behind her as Hanamaru put a foot in the doorway. Part of her wished she could stay out in the cool night longer, for the nickname caused her skin to heat up.

As soon as she began to softly slide the door closed, a thought occurred in her mind, and she turned around so quickly and threw the door open so hard the girl on Maru's shared balcony let out a loud yelp.

"Yoshiko-chan!" She started with urgency. "Please keep the volume of your music down! Please!" She repeated, practically begging her neighbor.

Yoshiko looked at Maru strangely before the corners of her mouth lifted every-so-slightly. "Sure thing," she responded smoothly as Hanamaru slid the door closed.

 

_\---_

 

As soon as she was in her apartment, Maru practically melted against her bed, grinning up at her ceiling. Her legs seemed to turn to jelly and her knees were locked in place.

It took an insane amount of effort to get Maru to stand herself up ten minutes later, although she wanted nothing more to roll around in her bed, squealing the whole time.

As soon as she reached her kitchen, hands wrapping around the cold teakettle she was about to reheat, she heard a familiar, barely-audible voice coming from the other side of her wall:

_"Mari-san! You'll never guess what just happened!"_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a million for reading!!
> 
> Honestly, I wasn't sure what song to have them sing, but then I thought "how about the Gay Anthem™"
> 
> Imagine Yoshiko and Hanamaru singing together I'm—
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr!!  
> @watanananabe


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